1) To temper and bend to what is just and right the evil outpourings of their students' hereditary inclinations to evil (Divine Providence 277)
2) To accommodate knowledges so that children can receive them (Arcana Coelestia 2533).
In every one these affections [inmost affections derived from the ruling love inherited from the father] are encompassed with the honesties that belong to moral life and with the goodnesses that belong partly to the civil and partly to the spiritual life. These constitute the external of life even with the wicked. Into this external of life every infant is born, and consequently is loveable; but as the child grows to boyhood or to youth he passes from that external to what is interior, and finally to the ruling love of his father; and if this has been evil, and has not by various means been tempered and bent by his teachers, it becomes his love as it was the father's (Divine Providence 277:4).
Although the doctrine of faith is in itself Divine, and therefore above all human and even angelic comprehension, it has nevertheless been dictated in the Word according to man's comprehension, in a rational manner. The case herein is the same as it is with a parent who is teaching his little boys and girls: when he is teaching, he sets forth everything in accordance with their genius, although he himself thinks from what is more interior or higher; otherwise it would be teaching without their learning, or like casting seed upon a rock (Arcana Coelestia 2533:2).
'To give bread to the hungry' signifies in the spiritual sense to instruct from the good of charity those who long for truths; 'to cover the naked with a garment' signifies to instruct, in like manner, those who are not in truths (Apocalypse Explained 195:16e).
We can see what is the nature of the education of little children in heaven, namely, that by means of the intelligence of truth and the wisdom of good they are introduced into the angelic life, which is love to the Lord, and mutual love, in which loves there is innocence (Arcana Coelestia 2309).
No one is ever instructed by means of truths, but by means of the affections of truth; for truths apart from affection do indeed come to the ear as sound, but do not enter into the memory. What causes them to enter into the memory, and to remain therein, is affection (Arcana Coelestia 3066).
What Are a Teacher's Special Uses?
Key Concepts:
1) To temper and bend to what is just and right the evil outpourings of their students' hereditary inclinations to evil (Divine Providence 277)
2) To accommodate knowledges so that children can receive them (Arcana Coelestia 2533).
In every one these affections [inmost affections derived from the ruling love inherited from the father] are encompassed with the honesties that belong to moral life and with the goodnesses that belong partly to the civil and partly to the spiritual life. These constitute the external of life even with the wicked. Into this external of life every infant is born, and consequently is loveable; but as the child grows to boyhood or to youth he passes from that external to what is interior, and finally to the ruling love of his father; and if this has been evil, and has not by various means been tempered and bent by his teachers, it becomes his love as it was the father's (Divine Providence 277:4).
Although the doctrine of faith is in itself Divine, and therefore above all human and even angelic comprehension, it has nevertheless been dictated in the Word according to man's comprehension, in a rational manner. The case herein is the same as it is with a parent who is teaching his little boys and girls: when he is teaching, he sets forth everything in accordance with their genius, although he himself thinks from what is more interior or higher; otherwise it would be teaching without their learning, or like casting seed upon a rock (Arcana Coelestia 2533:2).
'To give bread to the hungry' signifies in the spiritual sense to instruct from the good of charity those who long for truths; 'to cover the naked with a garment' signifies to instruct, in like manner, those who are not in truths (Apocalypse Explained 195:16e).
We can see what is the nature of the education of little children in heaven, namely, that by means of the intelligence of truth and the wisdom of good they are introduced into the angelic life, which is love to the Lord, and mutual love, in which loves there is innocence (Arcana Coelestia 2309).
No one is ever instructed by means of truths, but by means of the affections of truth; for truths apart from affection do indeed come to the ear as sound, but do not enter into the memory. What causes them to enter into the memory, and to remain therein, is affection (Arcana Coelestia 3066).
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